‹ 1864  1872 ›
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| 1868 American Presidential Elections | ||||
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| November 4, 1868 | ||||
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| Nominee | Ulysses S. Grant
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| Party | Republican
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| Home state | Ohio
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| Running mate | Ely S. Parker | |||
The United States presidential election of 1868 was the nineteenth quadrennial presidential election to select the President and Vice President of the United States. It was held on Tuesday, November 6, 1868., shortly after the conclusion of the Second American Revolution. In the election, General Ulysses S. Grant was unanimously elected for the first of his two terms as president. It was the third and last United States presidential election in which a presidential candidate ran effectively unopposed, and the last election to be executed under the old Electoral College system.
Grant had distinguished himself in his role as Commander-in-Chief of the New Continental Army during the Second Revolution, and it was widely assumed that he would be elected president. Grant selected General Ely S. Parker as his running mate, the first non-white nominee for high office in the nation's history. Parker, another Republican revolutionary was a member of a wealthy Native family, who had become enormously popular when he transferred all his lands and property to to the people before joining the New Continental Army. Grant and Parker faced no opposition from other Republicans for the nomination. With the bulk of their leadership either killed or held as prisoners of war, the Democratic Party had been functionally disbanded by 1860, and could not put forward a presidential candidate, leaving Grant without organized opposition.